A Smell of Snow and Paper
by Niklas Hallin
Summary: How can you learn magic spells from books and scrolls when you have no eyes? Geon has his own method and leaves the Dungeon town where he was born. But will learning magic also make him forget his selfish and evil ways? No knowledge of Heroes III lore is required but a basic familiarity with the towns, and the creatures associated with them, helps.


Geon grunted and put his mug down violently, feeling cascades of lukewarm beer splashing his fingers. His trusted nostrils had led him across the lands and eventually to a grand Castle and straight into a shabby tavern, where he immediately took to contemplating his misery in solitude. The room was warm and crowded, and smells and sounds assaulted Geon from every direction, rendering his physical senses practically useless and forcing him to rely more on his other ones. Groups of travellers emitted heat in swarms along the walls, but he also picked up a much closer, singular entity sitting at a table behind him. Out of curiosity he idly let his mind wander, trying to see what he could learn about this creature: an unarmed human female judging by her heat signature. Her mind stood out among the others in the tavern - so, a magic user then. Geon felt a spell he had seen before, hovering like a tiny nucleus in the back of her mindscape (he had heard it being referred to as "Cure"), but he also senses two spells that was completely new to him. This woman had obviously been allowed to study in the Mage Guild, a luxury Geon had longed for ever since he spawned in his pool of mud. But no one believed, or even considered, that a Troglodyte could learn magic. Without eyes, how could they read the spells from the spell books?

High Warlock Darkstorn was the leader of the Mage Guild in Blindroot where Geon was born. The old and mighty Minotaur controlled the nine towers of the guild library with an iron grip, and only those considered worthy, those who were themselves Minotaurs, where allowed to even set foot in the building. Geon ground his teeth. If you asked him, reading books was not the only way to learn magic, but who would ask him? Darkstorn, the old relic, who practically smelled like old paper himself, certainly wouldn't. He expected Geon to join the army with the rest of his litter, fight the war like all the other little Troglodytes, and die with a pointy stick in his hands. So Geon left, and followed his nose to the nearest town where Darkstorn did not live.

More heat approached from outside.

"Heroes?" a high-pitched voice squealed as the door of the tavern was forced open. "I need a hero to set out immediately!"

The human woman's pulse quickened, her body temperature rising slightly. "I am Caitlin," she announced. "What is the matter?"

"I am Sir Christian," the new voice answered. "A rotten Vampire scout has been sneaking around the castle. Those dirty necrophiles don't have the guts to go near our walls, but they are stalking around, seizing our saw mills and corrupting our infrastructure. I need someone to take a few Pikemen and reclaim our saw mill."

Geon expanded his ear-holes.

"Of course I will do this, for our magnificent Castle and the glory of us all" Caitlin said. "But I can't travel through lands infested by a Vampire with but a few Pikemen as my personal guard. Can I not take Griffins?"

"You can not," Christian admitted. "The hero Edric the Bold has taken all the Griffins on his quest to vanquish the threat from the south. His glorious crusade cannot be compromised."

"I'll do it," Geon croaked. "With only the Pikemen."

The room felt silent, and Geon felt on his amphibian skin the breath of every warm body in the room simultaneously exhaled in his direction.

"I…" Chirstian was baffled. "I didn't know you people…"

"…could talk," Geon finished. "I can think too. And I can lead an army if I have to. Seems to be the only way to earn a living in these days. I hear I will receive a commission of 2500 gold pieces."

"Why, yes, that is the standard compensation for heroes, but…"

"So give me my gold and my Pikemen, and I will take back your saw mill."

* * *

Geon sat uncomfortably in the saddle. He was perfectly satisfied walking, but these strange people seemed to expect him to sit on a horse. The horse was uncomfortable as well. The Troglodyte Hero could smell its anxiety. All around him the town square was full of people. He had already identified the smell of the fourteen Pikemen that was to be his troops, but the body heat around him suggested dozens of what he could only assume to be curious citizens come to witness the spectacle.

He could hear the unfortunate Pikemen whisper among themselves.

"What is that thing?"

"It smells like a whole sewer."

"Which part of it is its head? Can it even see?"

"I bet its blind. Let's make a run for it as soon as we have left the castle."

Geon grunted to himself and archived the different voices in his memory. He turned his head in the direction of the heat that was Christian.

"Your orders are to take the saw mill and the return straight to the castle. You are not to take these soldiers anywhere off the road or on any fool's errands outside of your mission. Best case scenario you do not even meet any other heroes, but if you do you are to avoid combat. We want these Pikemen back alive and in good health."

"Yes, sir," Geon hissed, and got his horse moving before the Knight could say anything else.

The small party left through the castle gate and started travelling down the main road, the Pikemen marching disgruntled behind the rider. The captured saw mill was not far off, and the troop arrived there early evening of the same day. The smell of saw dust was mixed with the smell of death. The workers and woodchoppers moved sluggishly and their body temperatures where significantly lower than what was expected from humans. Geon halted and turned to his soldiers, delighted that no one had deserted him yet.

"Men," he exclaimed in his loudest voice. "Do these flags have your colours?"

"No!" came the unison answer from the Pikemen, with the odd echo of "They don't, you blind fool."

"Then let's change the flags!" Geon shouted and galloped the last part of the way to the mill.

The party spent the rest of the evening shaking life back into the sluggish workers, giving them hot soup and taking down the flags left behind by the Necropolis Death Knights. Most of the woodchoppers was human, the common species in these lands, and they were all relived to be freed of the grip of darkness. They cheered happily for the Castle, and shortly returned to their business chopping wood.

Geon decided to set up camp in the saw mill, and let the Pikemen spend the night among their people. As a Trogdolyte he did not need much sleep himself, but heterothermal as he was he needed to keep warm when the sun was down. As he sat awake close to the fire he unexpectedly picked up a faint smell of rot. The smell grew stronger, and the air around him suddenly dropped drastically in temperature. Geon rose and started to kick the soldiers awake.

"Quiet, you lot," he whispered. "Someone is coming. Someone nasty."

Geon could now hear the slow and steady footsteps of the Walking Dead. He rallied the scared Pikemen behind him, and arranged the formation to meet the wave of the animated corpses. As he counted their pulses in his head he heard a faint whisper and felt two of them slowly disappearing from the ranks.

"Don't think I do not know you are trying to flee," he announced sternly, and felt to his satisfaction how two deserting pulses skipped a beat and the Pikemen shamefully returned to their positions.

And then the undeads were upon them.

Geon smelled the mass of dead bodies moving over the battlefield, and among them he sensed a mind as cold and empty as an endless void. The Hero rode atop a giant horse, whose mindless sadism was terrifying even for a spawn of a ruthless Minotaur town. The Death Knight's mindscape was enormous and hollow, the nuclei of thoughts like tiny black holes devouring all light, and among them a memory fragment of a long forgotten name: Tamika.

Geon ordered his Pikemen forward as he continuously attempted to understand the Death Knight's twisted mind. The Pikemen advanced slowly, and before long the Walking Dead was within reach of their long weapons. The Pikemen could fairly easy fend off the zombies, standing out of reach from their corrupted arms and attacking them with the pikes, but the Walking Dead couldn't care less about wounds in their cold flesh. A large portion of the body needed to be destroyed before a zombie was defeated, and the Pikemen had a hard time avoiding claw-like nails and meat cleavers.

Meanwhile Geon searched Tamika's mind for spells. Hers was the arts of Necromancy, and "Animate Dead" hovered like an enormous dark singularity in the centrepiece of her memory. Geon studied the thought nucleus and replicated it in great detail in his own mind. He had no interest in raising the dead, but it gave him immense satisfaction every time he got the chance to prove the Minotaur Darkstorn wrong; by learning a new spell without eyes to read from paper.

The brave Pikemen held their grounds against the undead onslaught. The scattered remains of eight Walking Dead could be found on the battlefield, and only three Pikemen had paid with their lives. Tamika saw that her army was slowly being destroyed. Without warning she turned her evil horse around and left the battlefield. Geon felt her strange mind fade away.

When their necromancer was no longer nearby the remaining Walking Dead simply fell to the ground, returning instantly to being regular dead. The surviving Pikemen cheered and sang. Some of them even turned to Geon and all but expressed their new respect form him as their leader. Geon too was filled with the sweet intoxication of victory. He hadn't told Sir Christian back in the Castle, and he never would, but this was his first time successfully leading an army in battle.

The night was nearing its end, and as the sun rose in the east a strong gust of wind came from the north. The wind was cold against Geon's skin and he even felt sparse, tiny snowflakes landing on his body. And then there was the smell carried by the wind. It smelled of the White Mountains in the north and it smelled, ever so faintly, of paper.

Where there is paper there are books, Geon thought, and where there are books there is sure to be wizards.

"We head north," he announced to the troops.

* * *

Geon followed the smell of snow and paper for several days. The Pikemen were nervous, and wanted to return to their home Castle as per Christian's orders, but Geon had a different mind entirely. When Geon started to sense that they were getting closer to a town the Pikemen suddenly became more relaxed in an instant. They joyously announced that the flags of the high Tower were the same blue as their own home Castle. This was an allied town. Surely Christian wouldn't mind if they visited their friends in the north. Geon had never cared much for colours, but he had developed a keen awareness of hostility and friendliness in his surroundings.

They entered the snowy Tower on a cold morning, and were greeted by a Genie called Aine. The Pikemen were flabbergasted by the enormous Titans roaming the mountaintops, but Geon, unaffected, quickly made an excuse and went to seek out the Library and the Arch Mages. The smell of old scrolls and drying ink almost knocked him to the floor when he entered the building. He could feel the bubbling minds of countless Mages and scholars all around him, and was delighted beyond description to finally be allowed to set foot in a place of learning. As his senses calmed down he purposefully sought out the brightest shining star among the minds in the Library, which turned out to belong to the Wizard Theodorus.

"Magnificent Magic Master" said Geon, truly humbled. "Please allow me to learn from you the arts of magic."

Theodorus looked surprised, and somewhat amused.

"I have never in my life heard of a Troglodyte spellcaster. How will you go about reading the tomes in this place?"

"I have my ways," Geon replied. "I cannot look inside a book, but I can look inside the mind of a person, and gain the knowledge I seek thus."

"Ah, of course. The Eye of the Eagle." Theodorus sounded truly entertained. "How exquisitely interesting. At my age I thought I had seen what there is to see, but this prospect intrigues me. You shall indeed be my apprentice."

For several weeks Geon the Troglodyte studied with Theodorus the master Wizard. They would leave the confines of the Library and would instead sit on the top of the highest mountain, meditating. Geon would cast his mind into the vast archive of Theodorus' memory and knowledge, and they would together examine thoughts, play with ideas and discover new spells.

"This Minotaur Warlock you sometimes think of," Theodorus imagined once, "Darkstorn. I know of him. He is a powerful magic weaver, but he thirsts for power and have little faith in those who are not of his own kind."

"Few have, in my experience," Geon thought back. "Everywhere I go people seem surprised a mere Troglodyte can do anything but crawl and be a nuisance."

"I admit you surprised me as well, at first. But with wisdom comes the habit of suspending judgment until you have collected sufficient information. Rushed or selfish decisions are the marks of the fool. As are pre-made ones."

Eventually the day came when Theodorus announced that Geon was a now a true Warlock. He had nothing more to teach his eager student, and it was time for Geon to leave the Tower and take his newfound knowledge into the world.

Geon prepared for his journey, and sought out the eleven Pikemen he had brought with him, asking them if they wanted to return to their home. Ten Pikemen were eager to depart. One had found true love in a Naga Queen and intended to remain in the Pavilion. Aine the Genie offered Geon a garrison of Gargoyles, but the Warlock declined. The Gargoyles emitted neither smell nor heat, and the only way to be aware of them was to keep track of the air volumes they pushed around when they moved. It made him uneasy.

Geon and the Pikemen left the Tower in the afternoon.

* * *

Several days later the party had travelled most of the way to the Castle. The Pikemen were preparing to set up camp for the night. Geon huddled by the fire. The snow-covered mountains had been tough for a cold-blooded amphibian. He needed to get some heath back into the core of his being. But as he whispered magic words to fuel the fire more and more, he only felt colder and colder.

And then he picked up the unmistakable smell of rotting flesh.

He could sense the alien mind of Tamika the Dread Knight even before he heard the sound of her army - the nothingness that was her mindscape, and the areas of more intense nothingness that was her thoughts. The undead army marched over the hills towards them. During the time since their last encounter Tamika had increased her power and influence, and she now commanded, apart from Skeletons in the hundreds, Wraiths and Vampire Lords, Liches and Black Knights, and even a huge Bone Dragon that loomed above them, casting its ominous shadow on the horde of undead.

The Pikemen shivered in fear. They knew they had nothing against an army of that size. Geon looked for ways to escape confrontation, but he realised their chances were slim. He sat down instead, and started searching his own mind. The panicked Pikemen thought him mad and kept grasping for ways to avoid the horror approaching them. The undead flowed over the hills like a black liquid, and it was clear to everyone that if they ran they would not get far. The Skeleton vanguard was close enough to spit at, and the Pikemen raised their pikes to fend off the first few, before the next wave of hundreds came, and the Wraiths and Vampire Lords after that.

Then, suddenly, Geon rose.

He had scoured his memory, and he had found just what he was after: an obscure spell once hidden deep in the mindscape of Theodorus - a inconspicuous nucleus of an idea with a sense of obsolescence about it.

His mentor had nicknamed it "Destroy Undead".

The spell rippled like a blast-wave over the enemy army, annihilating everything in its way, yet leaving the Pikemen and the Warlock Troglodyte completely untouched. It pulverized the Skeletons. It ripped the Wraiths in pieces. It incinerated the Vampire Lords. The Bone Dragon was turned into a cloud of foul dust and softly carried away with the gentle breeze.

Tamika the Dread Knight was purged from this realm.

The ten gobsmacked Pikemen found their wits and cheered in celebration. Geon had singlehandedly defeated a formidable army of the dead. He found himself at a fork in the road. The road to the east would lead him back to the human Castle, to Christian and Caitlin and the other Knights and Clerics, to the Crusaders and the Monks and maybe, just maybe, even the presence of real Angels. They fought a brave war against the ever-present threat of the spooky Necropolis, and even more so against the cruel Inferno - by all accounts bent on destroying the whole world. The ten remaining Pikemen would come home at last, and the Castle would benefit greatly from a powerful Hero in their lines.

But then there was the road south. That road would lead him back to the Dungeon Blindroot, where he was born. It would lead him right back to the Minotaur Warlock Darkstorn, and this time he would not be a mere Trogdolyte: he would be a mighty Warlock himself. Would he make a wise decision? Would it be a rushed or selfish one?

"You are dismissed," he said to the loyal Pikemen. "Make your way back to the Castle best you can. I'll head south."

* * *

Geon somehow found the tavern in Blindroot a more comfortable place than the ones he had visited in Castles and Towers around the world. It had a better smell. It smelled of mud, and earth, strong reliable scents, and it had a sour hint of Manticore poison. The beer was better too. A warm tavern and a cold beer - that was the greatest of treats after many days on the roads.

He could feel a strong mind approaching outside the tavern door.

"Heroes?" Darkstorn the Minotaur roared. "I need a hero, and a strong one!"

"What is this about?" asked a weird little man with his entire body covered in sharp plates of metal.

"Edric the Griffin-lover has entered our lands," Darkstorn growled angrily. "He has brought more of his precious flying chicken-cats than we have ever seen before. We need someone to lead an army and meet him."

"Oh, I don't think I can go up against Edric," the little man mumbled. "My Beholder breed is not strong enough just yet…"

Darkstorn eyes sparked with electricity as he stared at the poor man.

Geon rose from his table, letting the marks on his body glow with magical power.

"I can take him, Lord Darkstorn."


End file.
